In the latest eruption from Mt. Shaq, Robin Lopez was confused for Brook Lopez. At least we’ll never confuse Shaquille O’Neal for Mr. High Road.

You knew it was coming. The Lakers opened camp this week, meaning it was time for O’Neal to launch another torpedo at Dwight Howard.

He said Andrew Bynum and Robin Lopez are better players than L.A.’s newest star.

Yes, Robin Lopez—the wild-haired New Orleans Hornet averaging 5.8 points and 3.3 rebounds for his career. Robin's twin brother, Brook, on the other hand, has career averages of 17.4 points and 7.5 rebounds for the Brooklyn Nets.

“If you want to go to flash and dunking and the pick-and-roll, you gotta go with Dwight Howard,” O’Neal said. “But me, the last true dun duda, I’m going with Andrew Bynum and (Lopez).”

“Dun dada” means best, or so I’m told. It’s beside the point to get into the Howard-vs.-Bynum dun duda debate. Though it is amusing to hear Shaq rip a center for not having any inside game other than dunking.

He offered his critique on an NBATV roundtable discussion. Normally, I’d say this is just a case of a media personality trying to get attention. Especially now that Shaq doesn’t have a reality show.

It was just like Shaq to take on a 62-year-old man half his size. It was also just like Shaq when he returned to Miami two years later with the Suns. He smiled and joked and said all the harsh comments attributed to him were fabrications.

“I’m not that type of person,” O’Neal said.

Apparently he never read his own autobiography. When you’re as big as O’Neal, it’s apparently easy to go through life with two faces.

The real Shaq is funny and lovable. The real Shaq is also petulant and vindictive. That Shaq was bound to have a problem with Howard.

Dwight had to gall to be a center, get drafted by Orlando with the No. 1 pick and call himself Superman. That threatened O’Neal’s entire legacy, so the knives came out long ago.

Shaq’s not wrong about Howard’s inside game. It’s gotten better, but it wouldn’t matter if Dwight developed Kareem’s skyhook and led the Lakers to five straight titles.

O’Neal would still find reason to bring Howard down—especially since every ring for Howard would mean another ring for Kobe.

Howard’s never questioned O’Neal’s Dun Duda status. One of the reasons he wasn’t so hot to be traded to L.A. was he didn’t want to be seen as emulating Shaq. But now that he’s there, he’d like to just go about his business.

“There’s no sense for him to be talking trash to me,” Howard said. “He did his thing in the league. Sit back and relax.”

If only he could. But in the battle of Shaq vs. Pettiness, you know which side is going to win.